Women Academics From Nigeria

"The highest praise my Mum’s ever giving anything is “this is nice”. But she was just so taken by this new work! And I think I think that was what signalled to me that maybe this really was something special. I knew I had found something very interesting that I enjoyed and I was curious about but I think the reaction my parents had made it externally real, you know, as opposed to just internally."

"I think of my career as an open world video game with a hint of chess. If you were to strip it down to its absolute core, it really is a series of validations. The quality and nature of validation you want/need depends on what arena of the art world you're interested in playing in. But it's the kind of space where you just need a few yeses. Just a couple of yeses. The hard part is getting them in the first place. When you have the right yeses, you'll be fine. It's like needing someone to jumpstart your car."

"I think we do live in a fucked-up world, but it can also be a pretty cool world. I think we also underestimate people's capacity to be kind and generous, sometimes. And then also, don't underestimate the value that you bring as well to the table."

"Like, it’s not an easy career. I could have been an accountant. It would have sucked and I’d be bored and miserable! It would probably be easier. But here I am."

"I like what you've done. And for someone so young, you've done some really interesting things. I think you have a really bright future. Success like friends. Why wouldn't I want to get on that train?!"

"I must say that to get to the peak of the profession nationally, regionally and internationally, you must be multi-skilled, able to multi-task, take calculated risks, be focused, committed and passionate, and you must be deliberate in whatever you do."

"I started actually taking pictures on my work because I was frustrated with how other people took pictures of my work. I used to hire photographers to document my work, but they weren't seeing it the way I saw it. It was the most frustrating thing and I said, you know what, to hell with this, and I bought a camera. I read the manual. I learned how to use it. And then I started taking my own pictures. But even then, it's frustrating. It's impossible to like fully translated what the work is really like in person to images, but I try. I really try. It's just trying to like just to convey a sense of that three dimensionality and how there's just so much more going on. Everything changes when you adjust your perspective just a little."

"Also, I mean, at the risk of psychoanalysing that's also a way to protect yourself, and your ability to make more work. At the risk of sounding cliché, there’s a price to pay for creating. It is a give and take, but I think its human nature and dwell on what you've lost. But I do think the work definitely gives back to you, at least it does to me."

"Yes… I mean, the first piece I made was for my first degree. We didn't have like a final exhibition. Not in the traditional sense where everyone had their own individual exhibitions. We had a group exhibition where you had to contribute. The piece you put in was supposed to be the accumulation of the four years you had spent doing the degree, which now I think about it, that’s a lot of pressure!"

"All artists should stay true to themselves."

"There are few things as glaring as dishonest work. If you don’t value your point of view, no one else will."

"There’s something very humbling or rewarding in people whom I’ve never met, finding a connection with what I have to say."

"There used to be this very stereotypical perception of what Nigerian arts could look like. If it was more abstract, they would be some masks. If it was more figurative, there would be a market scene, or a lady fetching water. Now, there’s a lot more nuance."

"I find a good way to describe it is that I’m building a jigsaw puzzle, but I can see where it ends, I just call it lines on steroids."

"I think I was drowning because I’ve spent my entire life internalizing everything that has ever happened to me."

"Yes! It’s so much better being able to actually speak to another person. I guess I could have answered your questions via email, but I think school has kind of fucked writing up for me a little bit. The process of writing my thesis has soured a lot of things for me. So like, writing doesn't feel as pleasurable anymore, because my brain always processes it as a work activity now. Even when it's not work."

"I think therapy 100% saved my life."

"So I went right back out, and I bought a bunch of paper. Then I cut them up and I just kept rolling them and gluing them to a board just to see what happened. It became a really intense, passionate affair that just morphed into something loving and stable."

"The work can be difficult to define – is it a craft or an art? It’s something a suburban mum in Arkansas would use to make cards."

"But I don’t treat it like a craft. I treat it no differently than if I was sculpting or making an installation. It’s just another way to tell the story."

"I had just found a way to paint without painting."

"I find myself gravitating towards what I call ‘bubble-gum books’. Nothing heavy, nothing super intellectual. Nothing that won a prize, or was, you know, shortlisted for some prestigious award. I want like the smarmy historical romances."

"I feel like men take up enough space in the world, she explained. I don’t feel like they need to take up enough space in my head as well."

"You can tell a lot from a person’s eyes. The eyes offer a mutual vulnerability."

"Creating an artwork this way can take her anywhere from two weeks to seven months, depending on the size and scope of the piece. The process usually starts with a sketch, before eventually becoming a “skeleton” of its future incarnation."

"The decision not to vote is a decision to allow others to lead one in a direction one may not want."

"So the first thing is to be part of the process. The second thing is to vote wisely. I think for most Nigerians that is the little we can do. Once they get to government they don’t ask us of anything. They go ahead to run policies that are sometimes anti-people. That is why the person we choose must be the right person."

"Let us now look for candidates who have a clear vision, candidates we know that we can hold accountable. The roles of the citizens are to institute the leadership that we work for."

"There are few things as glaring as dishonest work. If you don’t value your point of view, no one else will. There’s something very humbling or rewarding in people whom I’ve never met, finding a connection with what I have to say."

"You have to wrench that power back! Otherwise it’ll ruin reading for you. So I've read everything Susan Elizabeth Phillips has written. Julia Quinn. Julia London. Almost all the Julias really. They tend to have nice books. Courtney Milan, Gaelen Foley, Jennifer Ashley. The list is long. There's so many of them. And then I tend to fall down rabbit holes because they’re usually a series of books. So I’ll read one book, wonder what happened to a particular character, and then find out they have their own book and immediately start reading that. It’s the best thing, really."

"My PHD is art and design. Academically, I’m more of a graphic designer. My research is exploring place branding, in Lagos. So I'm basically exploring how the state government in like the last decade has co-opted certain architectural and cultural monuments as signifiers for the state. But I'm arguing that they carry unexamined histories that kind of complicate their use. You know, it's as if you are trying to position yourself as a super modern, inclusive type state, but you're using a symbol that is actually really classist and patriarchal and really quite problematic. There's just this ironic tension in there. And that's sort of what my research is examining."

"In all of these, I always found time to promote and serve my professional association. I have been a financial member of the Nigerian Library Association for the past 38 years and have attended 99% of all the conferences since then. I was privileged to serve as President, Nigerian Library Association from 2005 to 2010 during which time I grew the finances/assets of the Association from about USD $35,000 to about USD $400,000 (needless to say that fundraising and networking are some of my passions). In appreciation of these services, I was honoured with the highest award as Fellow, Nigerian Library Association."

"She was also fairly unusual in her approach to philosophy. She did not just treat African myths and ideas as belonging to the past. She tried to make them part of the world movement of philosophies from ancient Europe to the present day."

"She shall be remembered as a distinguished scholar who touched many lives and as a dogged fighter and a Yoruba nationalist who never joked with the things that concerned her people. Hers was a life well spent in the service of mankind."

"When it came to defending women’s rights, she worked it out herself without being a follower of any specific modern trend. She was a feminist with a difference. In any case, she was particularly good at stating her position without making her being a woman to disturb whatever she thought about anything."

""When I started, there used to be only two ladies in the Physics department. But while I was the head, I was instrumental to the employment of three other female staff. While I was the Dean, my priority was employing women who are qualified in the faculty, in Mathematics, Physics, Geology, Chemistry, Statistics and Computer Science. Now we are many women in the faculty of Physical Sciences.”"

"Lead as a model, by example. Leading women scientists must develop a leadership style that will be highly prized."

"People confronted me with a series of questions. They would ask me:"Do you think you can make it on this seat". Okeke speaking on the challenges she faced as the first female dean."

"As a little girl, I was fascinated by the sky; why it appears white at times and blue at other times. I wondered why airplanes could fly and found my vocation when I learned physics could answer my questions.""

"We should pray that her work as an African philosopher should not be in vain. We should also pray that people will remember what she stood for all her life and all she taught about the importance of African languages and culture. She was an expert in Ifa literature and Yoruba culture."

"In the last 10 years, they have not.I will advise the government to formulate a national policy to support the elderly in our society, whether they are educated or uneducated. The elderly have contributed to the development of the country one way or the other. Not only that, I can tell you that old age is very expensive. To keep fit, the health of the elderly must be fully supported by the government."

"While preparations were being made for my surgery, I kept praying. Surprisingly, the surgeons came two days before the surgery to examine me and check if my pulse had increased as it was very low prior to that time. I was sleeping when they came. They woke me up. When they tested me, they saw that my pulse had gone up to 80 and the surgeons shouted in awe.They said they did not believe my pulse would improve that much. In fact, the surgeons said they had to return my money and everything. They returned my money and never performed the operation again. I am still alive till today – I have been going from strength to strength. God has been so kind and wonderful in my life."

"I met my husband when I came back from Britain. One of my old teachers at Yaba Higher College saw me and was very happy I was back from the UK. I was not married. The teacher said he was going to introduce me to whom he considered as “the most famous bachelor in town”. He did and it was Ayo Ogunsheye – he was then a teacher and Assistant Secretary of Nigeria Union of Teachers. I attended a seminar and we (my husband and I) met. The day we met, it was like I met an old friend. It was fantastic. We started talking as if we had always known each other. He was wonderful. When we met later, I read his papers and critiqued them. It was fantastic. We loved each other when we were together but unfortunately, he died suddenly about 40 years ago. Since his death, God has continued to support me."

"Well, it was more exciting in the 60s and 70s because interest was very high to the extent that we trained librarians in line with the country’s professional agitations. I was one of those who started a book on professional agitations and I made sure that when we did the national policy implementation, I was in the committee and it was said that no educational institution could be set up without having a library. Then, I went to do a master’s degree programme in library science in the US. I was conscious of the fact that we needed intellectual resources in our country. We should make sure that children have a library."

"I became a professor in 1973 when the university librarian started a library school in UI and they asked me to come and talk about how to organise maps. After talking about that, they said they would like me to move over and start a library because then we were taking the promotion exams of the UK and (they) wanted us to establish an academic programme. So, I went to Boston, United States, and did a master’s programme in librarianship and then came back and started the Department of Library Studies in Ibadan. I started the first programme except postgraduate and master’s degree programmes in Ibadan."

"No, I didn’t remarry. Before he died, I had retired from the university and was in Abeokuta as Chairman of Ogun State Teaching Service Commission and was in charge of all the primary and secondary schools in the state."

"More or less, I taught myself, and that was what happened with many of the first teachers in the university. I started a postgraduate programme from University of London (master’s programme) and I supervised 11 PhD holders and so many master’s degree candidates for several years before I retired."

"She was a trail blazing academic for whom I would continue to have huge affection for, especially in her candour and quest for distinction."

"When I finished at Yaba Higher College, one of my teachers had recommended me to take the entrance examination to Cambridge University, London. I took the entrance exam to read Geography at Cambridge but I had a problem because I did not do Latin in secondary school."

"I taught myself Latin to qualify for the entrance exam. I got credit in Latin after the one-year study and I was able to take the entrance exams and I got government’s scholarship to study Geography at Cambridge University in 1949."